Byte Sized – III (DNA Storage)

A DNA based archival storage system is in the works, thanks to research at Microsoft and the University of Washington! DNA seems to fit in very nicely at the bottom of the memory hierarchy, with an access time stretching into tens of hours, but durability extending into centuries. It is also extremely dense, with over 1 exabyte of information per cubic millimetre!

A 60cm x 60cm x 60cm box can hold over 200 million exabytes! I can ship this to anywhere in India in less than 24 hours, making that 2500 exabytes per second!

Moral of the story: Never underestimate the bandwidth of a station wagon full of DNA hurtling down a highway.